Chapter 187: Heartbeat

The deafening screech of crumpling metal tore through the container a split second before a violent impact rocked our world. Something unimaginably massive had rammed into the side of our steel prison at high speed.

The sedan we had been crouching behind suddenly lurched forward with a sickening screech of tires on the metal floor. The vehicle slammed hard into the opposite wall, flattening the two Beta enforcers standing there before they could even scream. Metal crunched, instantly crushing them against the bulkhead.

Then, piercing through the ringing in my ears, Ian’s high-pitched, inhuman shriek shattered the silence.

A wave of nausea hit me as the metallic stench of fresh blood filled the air. Gasping for the stale, dust-heavy oxygen, I froze as my gaze landed on something that made my heart skip a beat. The crumpled hood of the car had pinned Ian’s thigh against the wall. Right beneath his leg, resting in a widening pool of crimson, was the glass vial.

While Max cursed viciously, throwing his weight against the twisted steel to free his screaming accomplice, a primal instinct took over. I dropped to my hands and knees. Realizing I couldn’t reach it, I flattened myself onto the cold metal deck and army-crawled beneath the undercarriage of the wrecked sedan.

Disregarding Adam’s frantic, terrified whispers, I reached the front tire, snatched the cool glass cylinder from the pool of blood, and shoved it into the front pocket of my jeans. But the pocket was too shallow—the top of the vial stuck out clearly, an obvious target.

A vivid memory suddenly flashed in my mind—a scene from two years ago at the Lower City market that had deeply embarrassed me at the time. I had gone grocery shopping with Askold’s mother, and she had stashed all her paper money directly into her bra to keep it safe from the pickpockets prowling the narrow alleys. I remembered it so clearly because I had been robbed twice that very same month...

Swallowing my useless pride, I quickly unbuttoned the collar of my sweater and slipped the cold glass vial deep into my bra. Secured tightly against my skin, it would be impossible for anyone to notice.

Adam and I had been miraculously spared by sheer luck. Because we had crouched behind the vehicle out of sight, we remained entirely unscathed when the truck hit. Had that psychopath Max been pinned alongside Ian, we might have been able to squeeze through the jagged, sharp-edged breach torn into the container’s side panel and escape. But Max was alive, unharmed, and armed.

"Don’t move, breeder," Max growled, wheeling around with a deadly glint in his eyes. "Or I kill the old man right here and put a bullet through your knee. A minor wound won’t lower your market value."

With a brutal display of his animalistic strength, he yanked the screaming Ian out from under the crushed front bumper. Ian collapsed hard onto the blood-slicked metal floor, clutching his mangled leg and spitting a stream of deafening curses.

"Fuck! I can’t feel my legs! Damn it, Max, I need a hospital! Now!"

"Not going to happen," Max snapped, his voice tight with rising panic. "Austin is almost here with a hijacked minibus—he managed to break away from the chase. Magnus has completely lost his mind. There’s no one left alive in the warehouse; he slaughtered every single pack member. That bastard locked down the entire goddamn city. I knew he was unhinged, but I never expected a rampage like this..."

Max spat venomously on the floor. A sharp crunch echoed through the container as he crushed his useless, dead phone in his fist while Ian groaned in agony.

"What did he do?" the wounded man rasped, sweat dripping down his pale face.

"He executed Wheel. Stormed right into the government chambers and wiped him out without saying a word... Austin barely made it out alive, but I think Magnus let him run. The idiot headed straight back to the warehouse, and Magnus was on his tail within a minute. Austin didn’t say much over the comms, but he was scared out of his mind."

"Fuck!" Ian shrieked. "Why the hell do you think he didn’t put a bullet in Austin for the exact same reason?! He’s not an idiot! Magnus is tracking him right to us!"

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Pushing Magnus to his absolute limit was a death sentence for anyone in his path. I had heard endless rumors of his blood-soaked reputation—the solitary mark tattooed on his neck testifying to his lethal past—but no matter how ruthless he could be, I knew my mate was not a monster. He operated under his own unyielding code of honor, never harming the innocent. If these scum were telling the truth and Magnus had wiped out their network, it only proved those men were vile beasts who deserved no mercy.

Reaching subtly into my pocket, I pulled out my phone and held my breath. Through the cracked seam in the container wall, a single, weak bar of cellular signal flickered onto the screen.

Switching the device to silent mode, I immediately tried to place a call. While Ian writhed on the floor, I stayed crouched low behind the wreckage, Adam standing tall in front of me to shield my movements from Max’s sight.

Desperate hope hammered against my ribs, but the call failed to connect. With trembling fingers, I opened my messaging app and typed a rapid text to Magnus, detailing the mastermind’s identity, our captors, and our direction of travel.

I stared at the spinning loading circle, hardly daring to breathe, praying to every power in existence for the message to send. I wanted so desperately to go home—to be safe in the arms of my Alpha, to hold our young son. We had had so little time together. Looking back, my entire life felt painfully brief, and if I counted only the moments of true happiness, it shrank to a mere heartbeat.